The present invention relates to a cutting wheel composition, and a cutting wheel including the same.
A cutting wheel is used for cutting various types of base materials made of metals, plastics, or the like. In general, the cutting wheel is fabricated by pouring a composition including abrasive particles, a binder resin, and filler, into a disk-shaped mold, and compressing the composition at a predetermined pressure, followed by curing. Herein, as the binder resin, a phenolic resin, which is known as a heat-resistant resin with a glass transition temperature (Tg) of about 200° C., and a heat decomposition temperature of about 300° C., has been mainly used.
When a base material is cut by using such a cutting wheel, the friction between the cutting wheel and the base material generates heat, thereby increasing the temperature at the cutting area. This causes thermal damage to the cutting wheel.
Such thermal damage to the cutting wheel is one of the main causes of limitation of a cutting operation. Therefore, a research on the friction heat caused by the use of the cutting wheel has recently been actively conducted. In 2004, S. Malkin researched the heat caused by friction between a cutting wheel and a base material during a cutting operation. According to the result of the research, when the cutting wheel is used to cut the base material, the friction between the cutting wheel and the base material generates a friction heat, thereby highly increasing the temperature of a cutting area, that is, the interface temperature between the cutting wheel and the base material, up to about 600° C.
Accordingly, even though a heat-resistant resin (such as a phenolic resin) is used as a binder resin, a high friction heat generated at the cutting area heat-decomposes (thermally deforms) the phenolic resin existing on the cutting wheel portion corresponding to the cutting area, thereby separating abrasive particles bound by the phenolic resin from the cutting wheel. Such separation of the abrasive particles repeatedly occurs whenever the cutting wheel is used, and thus the life of the cutting wheel is reduced.
Therefore, it is required to develop a novel cutting wheel composition with high heat-resistance in order to inhibit the occurrence of thermal damage when a cutting wheel is used for cutting a base material.